John Daly: The Pinewood Derby Challenge | Moms

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I can honestly say that I'm not one of those parents who tries to live vicariously through his children. I don't get caught up in the competitive spirit of my kids' activities, and I don't insist than they inherit my interests. While I want and encourage my children to succeed at the things they do, my own sense of self-worth isn't tied to how well or poorly they perform.

When an activity comes up that requires some parental guidance, I try my best to maintain a minimal footprint in my role because I've always had a fear of becoming one of those parents who essentially takes over their children's projects to ensure a favorable outcome. It's not always easy to remain disciplined, even for a guy like me, but I think it's important that kids learn to do things for themselves.

Once a year, however, I'm put to the test. Every February, my son's Cub Scout pack holds its pinewood derby.

The purpose of creating and racing a pinewood derby car is stated quite clearly in official scouting documentation: "To help the Cub Scout build a team relationship with their parent or helper, experience the sense of accomplishment and the excitement of competition, learn Win/Lose good sportsmanship, and to have fun. "

All of that stuff is great, and for those reasons, I think the activity is very beneficial to boys. It seems like it should be a great father/son bonding experience, but the truth is that it's actually kind of stressful.

My son always feels a good of amount of pressure on him to produce a quality product. That pressure doesn't come from me. It comes from the very first experience he had with the pinewood derby, two years ago.

My son hadn't been in the scouts all that long at the time, and when he showed up for race-day with a wooden car that clearly looked to have been designed and crafted by a seven year-old boy (which he was), he was blown away by how inferior it seemed in comparison to all of the other kids' cars.

His was shaped like a stock car from the 1980's that might have spent its twilight years competing in demolition derbies at rodeos. Everyone else's looked like expertly carved, miniature replicas of actual Formula One cars driven by Mario Andretti.

His was hand-painted with two colors that lacked symmetry in how they were applied to each side. Everyone else's looked to be professionally painted, with multiple tones and glossy finishes you could see your own reflection in.

I was pretty confident that this was not the work of my son's peers, and part of me wanted to lay a sarcastic sneer upon the other fathers to let them know that they weren't fooling anyone.

But there was no time for that. My son and I quickly realized that we hadn't grasped the importance of weight and weight-distribution in making pinewood derby cars move fast. His car was far too light to stand a chance, as we learned when he came in dead last in a practice race.

Someone helped us quickly glue rows of plated weights to the bottom of the car, but in the end it didn't help much because everyone else had already strategically weighted their cars, in the right spots along the body, to the maximum limit. The result was my son's car finishing last in practically every race.

I'll never forget how sad he was that day.

Since then, we've taken the annual project more seriously, working hard to achieve that proper mix of style and substance. In doing so, however, I feel like something has been lost: My son's sense of ownership.

As much as he wants to take the lead in creating the car, he lacks confidence in his abilities and is worried that he just won't do a good enough job. After all, there's some pretty stiff competition to contend with. Thus, he wants me to take care of the harder stuff for him. I reluctantly do, but before long, he tends to get frustrated and complains that I'm doing too much. This of course makes me feel exactly the way I didn't want to feel - as though I've stolen his thunder.

Who would have thought a simple father/son activity could be so trying?

In the end, we get the job done and feel generally good about the results. But I still don't think my son recognizes the achievement as his own, and that's a shame, because he really does put a lot of work into it.

At least he has fun at the derby these days, now that he no longer finishes in last place. And that's certainly a good thing.

John is a stay-at-home dad, writer and computer programmer. See John's bio.